Feb 1st St. Brigid's Day: Why Irish women should follow St. Brigid, not just St. Patrick

St Brigid is the female equivalent of St Patrick in Ireland, but there are no parades in her honor.
Photo by: Wiki

St. Brigid is the female equivalent of St. Patrick in Ireland, but there are no parades in her honor, and apart from the St. Brigid's Cross, her name is hardly known.

That really should change.

St. Brigid was a woman who was well ahead of her time. Born around 453, she was the daughter of a slave and a chieftain, a story in itself. Her feast day is celebrated on February 1.

Growing up in Ireland we were all told about St.Brigid's cross made of rushes which became in many ways a national symbol, used by RTE the national broadcasting company for one.

But we learned little about Brigid herself. Her day was marked as the first day of Spring in the Celtic calendar but little else.

The tiny village of Focairt in Louth was known as her birth place but it never became a place of pilgrimage or a shrine.

Catholic Ireland back then paid little heed to female saints.

But Brigid was worth getting to know.

She became one of the most-powerful women in Ireland. After refusing an arranged marriage, she went on to found many convents whose schools provided an education for thousands of young women who otherwise would have had none.

She was the lone female figure whose voice was heard in a male-dominated Church, but the stories of her good deeds and extraordinary acts ensured she was canonized well before most of her contemporaries.

She stands today as an example of an Irish woman who followed her heart and took on the powers-that-be in a male-dominated world. She was certainly a figure as extraordinary as Patrick himself.